


the perfect anniversary

by blackorchids



Category: One Direction (Band), Radio 1 RPF
Genre: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Fluff and Mush, M/M, Tomlinshaw - Freeform, why is everything i write ridiculous
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-03
Updated: 2013-06-03
Packaged: 2017-12-13 21:37:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/829153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackorchids/pseuds/blackorchids
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Louis and Nick's first anniversary and Nick has completely forgotten. Desperate, he enlists the help of the rest of the lads. All he wants is for the evening to be perfect. It's not. But that's okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the perfect anniversary

**Author's Note:**

> This was a prompt that I sent in to two different people with two different pairings and neither of them actually stuck with the prompt (though I did get two fabulous stories out of it). I've decided to have a crack at it myself. this is so beyond fluffy that i'm sort of embarrassed. whoops.

Nick is not a morning person. In hindsight, he probably shouldn't have decided to roast a radio breakfast show, but way back when he was still little and unknown, he took whatever time slot he was offered. But that didn't mean that, on his days off, he got up early to fill the world with his musical enlightenment and charming wit. He _liked_ sleeping until it was three in the afternoon, no matter how many times his dad had bitched at him that it was a waste of a day, way back when he was still a teenager.

The _only_ reason why he'd be willing to get up at some godawful early time is if Louis is home and ready for some before-breakfast sex. Of course, secretly dating one-fifth of the world's most famous pop band tended to have a damper on things. Louis was rarely home, and it was even rarer that he wasn't completely exhausted from timezone changes and long flights and award shows and parties and, well, Nick supposes something about having a glamorous life has to keep Louis tired, because that boy sleeps for ages when he gets home.

But Nick is rather surprised to wake up with Louis' warm lips nipping at his neck, his hot breath fanning across the older man's bare chest. One Direction only returned from India twelve hours ago and he'd fully expected to be reduced to watching telly programs on mute all day while Louis, the spoiled brat, slept off his jetlag. Nick pulls open one eyelid to make sure that it is, in fact, Louis who is now slowly making his way down Nick's chest.

"G'morn," Nick mumbles half-heartedly, watching with his one-opened eye as Louis pauses, a wicked grin pulling at his pretty pink mouth, his blue eyes shining mirthfully.

"So I've got vocal training for a few hours," Louis begins, sitting up and furrowing his eyebrows at the mention of training. Nick is bewildered. Louis loves vocal training because he enjoys making all sorts of completely useless noises during warm-ups. "But I'll be back by half six at the very latest."

And then Nick watches blearily as Louis smiles again, looking a bit excited at the mention of half seven. Nick tries in vain to remember if there's a footie match going on then, but football had never really been his passion, and he tries his very hardest to keep his mind as untainted from the foul sport as possible.

"Sounds good," Nick mumbles, throwing an arm across his eyes.

"I hope that doesn't affect your plans." Louis says worriedly, already off the bed and rooting through Nick's closet for something to wear. Half of the clothes in the closet are the younger lad's clothes anyway, but Nick wishes he wouldn't _throw_ every single rejected shirt across the room.

"My plans." Nick repeats, completely unaware as to what the bloody hell Louis is refering to. Today was supposed to be a lazy day. Nick hadn't even planned on getting out of bed, really. "Would you at least _attempt_ to avoid taking every single piece of clothing out of the closet?" Nick asks as an after thought, but Louis seems to be ignoring him.

"My plans," Nick mumbles again, nothing but confusion in his voice. Louis looks up.

"Did you say something?" he asks, wiggling around the room as he tries to force his favorite pair of royal blue jeans up his legs. Louis is all masculine curves, with his toned calves, his thick thighs, and his truly magnificent bum, and Nick would suggest just going up a pantsize, but the younger lad always gets this sort of wounded puppy look in his eyes, wear track pants for a day, and decline second helpings of whatever marvelous concoction Harry's cooked up that time. Anyway, Nick loves Louis' bum and his jeans only add to the pleasure that is watching it.

"Nope," Nick finally replies, deciding that he won't tell Louis that today is his lazy day. Louis will just criticize him or call him old and Nick loves bantering, but he's too tired from their quickie the night before when his boyfriend stumbled into his flat in the earliest hours of the morning.

"I'll see you later, Grimmy," Louis says after he pulls on a white tee-shirt that makes his collar bones look truly spectacular and slips his bare feet into his Toms.

"Bye," Nick mumbles, watching his bedroom door close and falling back into his pile of pillows, pulling the sheets up above his head in hopes he can manage to get a few more hours of sleep.

*

Nick's never really had great luck. His truly naive hope of getting extra sleep in is shattered by the half-hysterical pounding on his front door that he can hear even across the flat. There is only one person in his life who would actually lower themselves to doing that and Nick finds himself wondering--not for the first time--why he ever made friends with Harry fucking Styles.

Ten minutes later, the pounding stops and Nick hopes that Harry has given up and just gone home. The bedroom door flies open and Nick wants to cry.

"What are you still doing in bed?!" Harry exclaimes disbelievingly before Nick can even get a word in edgewise. The older lad's eyebrows shoot up to his hairline. Harry broke into his house to criticise his sleeping habits?

"We can't all be eighteen years old with enough energy to fuel a small town," Nick snaps, pulling his sheets over his head in hopes that Harry will get the message that he is not welcome.

Of course, Harry Styles is a special kind of person who is completely oblivious to subtlety. The curly haired boy sits down on the edge of the bed, right next to Nick and yanks the sheets away from his face.

"Louis is completely over the moon imaging the possibilities you've thought up of for tonight." Harry says cheerfully, either missing or choosing to ignore the death glare coming from his friend.

The glare, however, slips off his face at that. "Tonight?" Nick asks and Harry pauses, swiveling his green-eyed gaze to his mate. He laughs once.

"Don't tell me you forgot," Harry says, a smile still pulling at his lips, clearly under the impression that Nick was just trying to put one over on him.

"Forgot wha--" Nick cuts himself off, running over important dates in his brain. It's not December, so he couldn't have forgotten Louis' birthday, it's not June, so the band's anniver-- _the anniversary_. "Oh. Oh _shit_." Nick says.

Harry's eyes are wide, disbelieve radiating out of his every pour as he shoots off the bed and yanks the sheets the rest of the way off of Nick, not even blinking at the older man's current state of undress. " _You forgot_?!" Harry exclaims, clearly quite unable to believe the current goings-on.

"You lot have been out of the country for _weeks_ ," Nick exclaims indignantly, though he already knows that this is not a good enough reason. 

" _That's why it's supposed to be even more special_!" Harry half-screeches, throwing a pair of grey jeans and a black Arctic Monkeys tee-shirt at his face. "Louis has been _raving_ about this for _weeks_ , if not _months_ , and you bloody well _forgot_?!"

Nick hastily pulls on the clothes and half-stumbles out of bed, nearly tripping over the sheets tangled around his ankles and feet. "It just slipped my mind!" he protests weakly, "Of course I knew when it _was_ , I just didn't expect it to come this quickly!"

Harry does a complete three-sixty spin, both of his hands tangled in his hair as he stares at Nick desperately. "If you don't fix this within the next six hours, Louis won't ever forgive you."

Nick laughs unconvincingly. "He'd get over it," he says, though the both of them are completely aware that it's a total lie. Louis, for all of his cool and prickly exterior, _lives_ for these sorts of moments. 

"What are you going to do?" Harry asks and Nick swallows, glancing at his phone and wondering if his connections with everyone are really as good as Louis makes fun of him for.

"First, we're going to the bakery," Nick declares promptly, stuffing his feet into his shoes and stalking through his flat and out the door, Harry hot on his heels.

*

Three bakeries later and Nick is about to rip off his left arm and use it to start hitting someone.

"What do you _mean_ there aren't any chocolate cakes for sale?" Harry's asking the old man behind the counter, his voice as panicked as Nick feels. "How can every damn bakery in this whole town be _out_ of chocolate cake?"

A patron, sipping her coffee in the corner, speaks up then. "A company downtown is having a chocolate festival," she informs Nick cheerfully, looking completely oblivious to the look of desperation on his face. "They probably bought out everything chocolate they could find weeks ago."

Nick wants to scream, but Harry looks like he's about to collapse with this new knowledge and Nick figures it would look bad on him if Harry Styles of One Direction faints while spending time with him.

"Alright," Nick says, his voice half an octave higher with hysteria. "Alright. Alright. Alright." He grabs Harry's wrist and thanks the girl and the man and drags the pair of them out of the useless establishment. World's Best Chocolate Cake, his left arse cheek. Nick glances up and down the cobblestone street before sighing and running a hand through his already-ruined quiff.

"Which one of your mates can cook?" he asks Harry resignedly.

*

"Chocolate cake?" Zayn asks fifteen minutes later, the three of them back in Nick's flat, standing around the kitchen. "That's easy. I can do that."

"You're sure?" Nick prompts tiredly. It's awful of him, but he wishes this whole day is over and he's only just getting the cake part taken care of.

"Sure," Zayn says easily, studying the cook book curiously. "The recipe's right here--I just have to follow that and you should be good to go."

Nick is about to confirm with Zayn once more but Harry's already yanking him back out of the flat, shouting a thanks over his shoulder. "Come on," Harry says, "We've only just gotten the cake. You still have to plan the whole rest of the night."

"Dinner, cake, movie, sex?" Nick asks and Harry looks so scandalized that he would probably laugh in any other situation.

"That's _it_?" Harry asks. "That's _all_ you've come up with? It's been, like, an hour!"

"A nice dinner," Nick ammends. "Sex on a bed of rose petals?"

Harry looks ready to cry once more and Nick thinks back to the days when he just slept around with randoms. Life wasn't nearly as difficult.

Ten minutes later, Nick is pulling up to a flower shop and he leaves Harry in the idling car, jogging into the botique and grabbing every boquet of red or white roses he can get his hands on. The total ends up being nearly two hundred pounds and Nick wants to murder the woman behind the register because he knows he can find roses cheaper somewhere else but he hasn't got the time.

He's on his way out of the shop, the seven dozen roses in an awkwardly large bundle, when Harry steps inside, looking composed but worried once more.

"Nick," he mutters to the older lad, "Your car died out."

Nick nearly drops the roses, but he refrains, instead choosing to release a colourful stream of expellatives from his lips.

"Did you try starting the ignition again?" he asks Harry as the pair of them exit the shop and stop at the car parked two metres away.

"You know I did, Grimmy," Harry says desolately. "I'll call a car and you call the towing company."

The car comes far sooner than the tow-truck and Harry decides that he'll take the roses and wait for the tow-truck and that he'll just meet Nick whereever the older lad is by the time the car is all settled. Nick agrees because, really, neither of them have any idea how long the truck will take and he needs to get the rest of this quick-becoming-cursed night sorted.

Nick's cheeks are flushed and he's not meeting the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror. He got the idea from an advert on the radio and had thought it was brilliant. It was so cheesy that he'd blushed just thinking about it, and he'd stumbled over his words--twice--when asking the driver to change direction. Of course, the man was a regular driver for the Harry and the rest of the lads, so he didn't even blink at what Nick thought was an odd request, but the radioshow host still felt supremely embarassed.

Nick is not romantic in any sense of the word. Ask any of the men or women in his life, past relationships and hookups--they'd all jump at the chance to tell you just how _un_ romantic he is. It's ridiculous because Harry's a complete cornball, Liam's sweet, Pixie loves romance, Finchy has his moments, and Nick likes quickies in the backseat of Harry's Range Rover (that had been hilarious, especially when Harry'd found he and Louis and turned as red as a tomato). Of _course_ he'd somehow end up dating the one boy who practically thrived off of romantic gestures.

Louis adores things like boquets of roses and candlelit dinners and 'making love' and matching outfits and Nick likes things like old records, fast food, fucking, and sweatpants. Whenever he's unfortunate enough to end up spending time with all of One Direction as a whole, Niall only has to take one glance at Louis and Nick's intertwined fingers and he's laughing for the entire rest of the night. There is just something so completely mental about their entire relationship, but Nick likes it like that.

"I think we'll be there in five minutes, Mr Grimshaw," the driver tells him nearly an hour later and Nick blinks at the formal title before flushing once more.

A star lit hot-air-balloon ride. Nick supposes it doesn't get any more romantic than that. And dangerous, since Louis is still in the closet, but it's night time and they'll be in the sky, and if the Directioners manage to get a decent picture of the two of them three hundred metres above the ground in the dark, then maybe that picture deserves to be splashed all over every social media site there is.

The car pulls over to a stop and Nick's out the door before he can chicken out and go back to his previous idea of sex on top of rose petals. They are at a massive field that seems to stretch forever, spotted occasionally with brilliantly coloured balloons, all deflated.

"You look familiar," the man in charge says, studying Nick closely, "Do I know you from somewhere?"

"I've just got that sort of face," Nick replies hastily, "I'd like to rent a balloon for me and my mate tonight."

The man sends Nick a suspicious look but is unable to ignore the prospect of business. "That will be two hundred pounds."

Nick nearly chokes. He's remembering exactly why he chose to stay single for so long--anniversaries were bloody expensive. But he sighs and pulls out his wallet, flicking through it and plucking out a hundred pounds. "I'll pay half now and half at the end of the night," Nick offers and the man nods greedily. Nick cannot wait to just get out of here, and he's halfway back to the car when the hot-air-balloon man calls over to him.

"Be here by half nine," he shouts and Nick waves without looking back, entering the information into his phone though he's sure he won't forget.

*

It's nearly five when Harry meets him at the biggest giftshop on Main Street, a beanie stuffed over his curls, a pair of sunglasses on his face though they're inside, a fake mustache, and his jumper hood pulled up over his head. Nick can very clearly tell it's Harry, but he thinks it might be because he knows the boy well.

"Did you have my car taken home?" Nick asks him as he flicks through various tacky gifts.

"Well the tow wasn't there when I left," Harry mumbles and Nick snaps his head to look at him.

"You just left my car there?!" Nick hisses, wanting to grasp Harry and shake him by the shoulders a few times but aware that that action could cause the disguise to slip off and, well, that would be really bad for the pair of them.

"No," Harry says firmly, grinning that stupid 'I'm so smart' grin that he has. "I called Niall--he's waiting with it now. I knew you'd need my help and the truck was taking _so_ long and it was boring just standing there hiding from everyone."

Nick pictures Niall, blonde and sweet, in Harry's place, hiding from everyone and a confused look pulling at his features. Nick doubts that Harry told Niall exactly what he'd be doing and then ran away before the blonde could escape. Unfortunately, Nick doesn't really care much.

"What have you gotten done since I saw you last?" Harry prompts when Nick doesn't volunteer the information freely.

The older lad mumbles a long string of unintelligible words, picking up a snow globe with tiny, shoddily done porcelin figurines of The Wanted posed inside, filled with red hearts and wondering if this is too tacky to give Louis. He wraps his long fingers around it, a positively marvelous idea rooting in his brain. Suddenly, he's a bit less shy about his uncharacteristic acts previously.

"Sorry," Harry's saying, "I didn't quite catch that."

"Rented a hot-air balloon for the night," Nick says, "Talked to a deli and they're fixing me a picnic basket."

Harry blinks, a disbelieving look crossing his face. "You're lying," he says point-blank and Nick scowls. He wonders if twenty pounds is too much to pay for a joke.

"I am not _lying_ ," Nick replies, "Do you really think that I'd be able to come up with that in the thirty seconds it took me to answer your question?"

Harry contemplates that for too long and Nick scoffs, resists shoving his hand in his mate's face, and pushes past him to the checkout counter to pay for his tacky snowglobe. When he gathers his change and the bag and turns back around to meet Harry, he is terrified to find a positively massive grin splitting the younger boy's face in two.

"What?" Nick asks suspiciously and Harry's grin widens even more, if that's possible. " _What_?!"

"You're so romantic, Nickie," Harry cooes, successfully dodging Nick's flying hand with ease. "And all for--who?"

"Shut up." Nick grumbles, stalking out of the shop and wondering why he'd ever felt grateful when Harry showed up fiteen minutes previously.

"You _luuuurve_ him," Harry sings in a falsetto as they slide into the car. "You really do--oh my gosh, you planned all of this stuff for Lou, don't even try to deny it."

"I don't," Nick protests, "I just don't want to have to listen to his moaning and bitching for the next two weeks because I didn't do anything. And the better it is, the greater the sex will be."

See, at the very beginning, Harry had found it very awkward to talk to Nick and Louis about anything concerning anything remotely intimate. Said it was weird, like listening to his two brothers talk about having sex. But he's since gotten over it, much to Nick's immense displeasure.

"Stop at the deli, Horatio," Nick tells the driver, "And then we'll go back to my flat."

"Yes, Mr Grimshaw," Horatio replies smoothly. And Nick is finally sure that everything is going to work out just fine.

*

When they get back to the flat, basket on Nick's arm, Niall and the tow-truck are just pulling in with Nick's car. Niall waves and Harry goes to wait for him while NIck gets a headstart up the stairs, excited to see how far Zayn's gotten on the cake.

On his floor, he can smell the familiar scent of something burning. Most of his neighbors can't cook to save their lives, but the black smoke pouring out from underneath his door is rather worrying. Nick flings open the door and is assulted by a massive cloud of black smoke to his face. Eyes watering, he struggles to the kitchen, vaguely hearing Niall and Harry entering behind him, coughing up a storm.

The kitchen is a disaster. Nick doesn't think he's ever seen it this completely ruined before. There is chocolate cake batter on the walls and the floors, the counters and even the ceiling. Zayn _and_ Liam are both in there, covered in batter and smacking at a flaming cake with dish towels. Nick glances at the stove and wonders if he's going to have to purchase a new one.

"What is going _on_?" He demands, watching both boys jump a metre into the air and whirl around to face him, doing a positively awful job at hiding the still-smoking cake. "The burning cake--I can sort of understand it. Someone forgot it in the oven for an hour or so too long." Nick's voice is dripping with sarcasm by the end of his sentence. "But _why_ does my kitchen look like the chocolate volcano of the world erupted inside of it?"

The boys glance at one another, seeming to have a silent conversation with their eyes. Finally, with a nudge from Zayn and a sigh from Liam, the younger boy speaks. "Zayn called me over when the first cake exploded," Liam supplies. "So we tried to make a second. And it, well."

"It burst into flames," Zayn says bluntly. "I cook stir-fry and rice. I've never been much of a baker."

Nick can feel the vein in his head throbbing erratically. He runs his tongue across his lips. "Okay," he says in a forcedly calm voice. "Okay. Alright. Okay. That's fine. That's cool." his voice is steadily getting higher in pitch and it cracks at the end and the boys are all looking at him cautiously, as though he's about to follow Zayn's first cake and explode. Nick sucks in ten rapid breaths and checks his watch. It's six o'clock and Louis is due home in thirty minutes. Luckily, the only thing missing from his perfect night is the cake. They can live without cake, Nick supposes. He thinks the deli packed some cookies in the basket anyway.

"Alright," Nick says again, in a much more normal voice. "Zayn and Liam, _clean up my kitchen_." Zayn rolls his eyes but Liam nods obediently, already beginning to clear the counters of the batter. "Niall, you take this basket and put it in my other car. Stand outside and text me the _moment_ you see Lou's car at the end of the street." Niall looks ready to protest but Harry gives him a pointed look and he shrugs, saluting all of them and exiting the kitchen. "Harry, let's find the damned roses."

Liam makes a cooing noise and Zayn makes a whip sound and Nick just barely refrains from murdering the pair of them. Barely.

Harry follows him out of the kitchen and into the sitting room where Niall's deposited all eighty four roses on the couch in a teetering pile. The vases are spilling onto the cushions and Nick just wants friends his age who aren't complete morons most of the time.

"Okay, Haz," Nick begins, taking the vases off the couch and setting them on the overcrowded coffee table. "You pick out five of the best roses and put them in one of these so they don't get droopy. I'll start ripping the petals off the rest of these and you can help me when you're done with that."

Harry grins mirthfully. "You going to leave a trail?"

"Better rose petals than chocolate batter." Nick mumbles, already starting a pile of petals next to him, tossing the useless stems away. He's going to regret that later, but right now he just has to get this done before Louis gets home.

"These are lovely," Harry comments, leaning back on his haunches to study the roses he's picked out--three white and two red. He smiles at them for another minute before turning to aid Nick in brutally mudering the rest of the flowers. They're making good time and Nick pretends to ignore the horrible crashing noise that sounds from the kitchen. His eyes keep flickering to his phone and he nearly has a heart attack when a message from Niall pops up.

 _ **Hi Grimmy**_ , it reads and Nick wonders how much trouble he'd get into if he just killed the lot of them. He supposes prison would be nice, since it would keep him safe from the psychotic Directioners that would be out for his soul if he ever was reduced to murder.

Harry and Nick finish with the roses and Harry, the doll, begins gathering up all of the discarded stems as Nick takes the pile of petals and begins to sprinkle them on the floor, in a clear path from the front door all the way down to the other end of the flat where the bedroom is. He makes sure that he leaves enough extra, and hastily strips the sheets off his bed, wadding them up and chucking them into the closet, rooting around his dresser for the new ones he'd bought ages ago but never felt like switching out. They're black with red edging and look as though they're coming straight out of one of the romance movies Harry loves so much.

The bed is finished being made, the vase of roses set on the end table, when Harry starts shouting from the living room that Niall says that Louis is in the parking lot. Nick glances at the petals and grabs the pile from the night stand, chucking the whole lot of them onto the bed and closing his curtains now so they won't forget later. He turns off the overlight and leaves on the small lamp, studying the nearly-dark room for a moment and deciding that it's about the best he can do. He's in the living room with Harry thirty seconds later, the tacky snow globe in his pocket, the list of movie times clutched in his hand. He needs to catch Louis before he gets up here, otherwise the younger boy will spot the rose petals and, while Nick would love to just spend the entire night having sex, he didn't go through all of this trouble for his efforts to be ignored.

Nick flings his front door open, nearly jogging out of the flat, Harry's well-wishes floating after him. He glances down at his outfit, the same one Harry had picked out earlier this morning, and wonders if, perhaps, he should've changed. _Oh well_ , Nick thinks. He's two floors down when he finally reaches Louis on the stairwell, mumbling about bloody hipsters who can't just live in a building with an elevator.

Nick catches him by surprise, reaching out and wrapping his fingers around Louis' wrist and pulling the younger boy closer to him, pressing his lips to Louis' pink mouth, smirking when his boyfriend responds immediately, one hand fisting his shirt, the other tangling in his hair.

"Hi," Louis breathes when they pull away, his pretty blue eyes sparkling.

"I know you proably want to get washed up and such," Nick says, "But we haven't got time."

Louis glances down at his blue jeans and the damned shirt that Nick _loves_ and his lower lip pushes out in a bit of a pout.

"You look perfect," Nick assures him, deciding to risk lacing their fingers together, at least until they step out of the building. Louis' cheeks are flushed at his compliment and he looks away and out the window as Nick leads him back down the stairs.

Louis raises an eyebrow when the older lad opens the car door for him, but steps inside the black Mercedes without comment, a small smile pulling at his lips. The picnic basket is safely hidden in the trunk of the car and Nick winces but allows Louis to fiddle with the radio dials, settling for some pop music station and leaving the volume low so he can chatter away about his day. It's twenty minutes into the drive and Nick's stopped at an intersection when Louis' story finally finishes and Nick rustles around in the back seat for a minute before extracting the box he'd put the snowglobe in and pulling it to the front, handing it to Louis and pressing his foot on the gas.

"What's this?"

"I thought you'd like it." Nick grins wickedly and Louis' eyes narrow with suspicion.

"Do I have to open it?" he asks and Nick scoffs.

"Like you'd be able to resist knowing what I got." he tells Louis and Louis scowls but doesn't bother to debate that, slowly lifting the top off the box and peering inside. A bark of laughter sounds a moment later and Nick's grin is entirely too self-satisfied.

"Ew, I've never not wanted a gift more," Louis whines, giving particular emphasis to the word 'wanted' and lifting the snowglobe out of the box, studying it closer. "Ha--Tom's face looks deformed and Max looks like he's in pain." Louis continues to point out every flaw of each figurine as shitty pop music plays in the background and Nick wonders exactly what his standards have been reduced to. But when the lad looks up, his pretty blue eyes shining with happy, Nick remembers that it's him who is way out of Louis' league and not the other way around. Not that he'd ever admit that.

"We interrupt this broadcast to bring you a special report," a deep voice says on the radio and Nick turns the volume up, furrowing his eyebrows. "The Nationally-cherished hot-air balloon park has burnt away to nothing. There are no injuries, but reports say that all of the balloons were lost. Firemen are still struggling with putting the fire out." Nicki Minaj starts up again.

Nick swallows. They're about three kilometres from the hot-air balloon park he'd been at earlier, but _there is no_ way that it's the same one as the one mentioned on the radio. It's just not possible. Nick was just there only hours earlier and his luck is _not_ that bad.

Louis, luckily, has now moved on to rapidly shaking the The Wanted snowglobe with a slightly worrying sadistic look on his face and Nick can see smoke in the cloud-filled sun-setting sky. Their car slowly pulls to a stop and Nick wonders if this is some sort of repayment from some higher being for him not believing in them. He's not an athiest, sure, but he doubts he's got a very good track record with all of the gods up above.

The younger lad is looking out the window now, his mouth forming a perfect 'o' as he takes in the field that is black and charred and smoking. Nick leans forward and plants his head onto the steering wheel, sucking in ten deep breaths and counting each one, just like Pixie had taught him.

"I was going to take you up in one of those," Nick mumbles into the car horn and he can feel Louis' eyes on him now. "But apparently they all caught fire and there's nothing left."

"Nick," Louis begins, reaching over to rub his back, "It's okay. We can do something else."

"No, I know," Nick says, rising back into the proper sitting position and making a possibly illegal u-turn, driving a bit too fast. "I've got other things planned too, this was just something that I'd thought you'd like."

Louis' disbelieving look is back. "You planned _more_ than a supremely romantic hot-air balloon ride?" he asks and Nick hopes that the burning he feels in his cheeks isn't noticible. Of course, it is. "Are you _blushing_ , Grimshaw?" Louis demands, his voice taunting but still filled with a little bit of awe from earlier.

"Shut up," is all Nick can manage to mumble as they make their way down the long stretch of road and Louis turns his pop music back on, shouting out another laugh when the first beats of Rock Me start playing.

"I used to think that I was better alone," Louis sings along, just a little too quietly for Nick to hear over the song, and he knows Lou's done that on purpose.

It's just about dark when Nick finally pulls up to the park he'd had in mind. It's a quaint, private little thing, filled with loads of trees that way no one can see the pair of them eating in the dark like twats even though Nick's sure he's got a couple candles in the trunk of his car. He opens the door for Louis again and tells him to go find a good spot while he gets the stuff sorted in the back. Louis is completely bewildered and muttering things about being taken to the park in the dark to be taken advantage of by his boyfriend, but he complies with few protests and Nick gives him an encouraging shove off in the right direction that only earns him a scowl. Once Louis is walking away, he darts to the back of his car, unlocking his trunk and throwing it open.

Except it doesn't open. Nick swears under his breath, pressing the little unlock button on his keys about a million times and swearing again when the trunk remains stubbornly closed. 

"Nick!" Louis calls, "I've found one and I'm _waiting_."

"Oh, quit your whining," Nick mumbles, but he knows that he has to be nice today. It's their anniversary and Louis is gone again tomorrow afternoon. "Coming!"

A sharp kick to the trunk that leaves a horrifying dent in one side does the trick, the door easing open slowly, as though it had been unlocked the whole time. Nick takes two seconds to mourn the back of his car before grabbing the basket and the candles and quickly making his way over to where Louis is standing, right in the middle of a clearing, his arms thrown up above his head, his shirt riding up a little bit around the waist.

Louis spots him and grins impishly. "A candle-lit picnic in the park?" he teases, "Grimmy, who's been giving you romance lessons?"

"No one's been giving me lessons," Nick says easily, "I'm just hopping to get lucky tonight."

"You did all of this for one night?" Louis asks, a wicked glint in his eyes, "I might have to expect this sort of treatment more often if you want the sex to continue."

Nick throws a muffin at Louis' head and yanks out the hideous red checkered blanket, spreading it out and setting the basket off to the right, lining up the candles a safe distance away from the accidentally-knocked-over range. Nick supposes the city doesn't need another massive fire tonight. They're eating potato salad and bickering and kissing and lounging around on the blanket, their faces far too close to one another to eat comfortably but neither of them caring too much. And that's when Nick feels it.

In all of his years of living, Nick can't remember when he ever hoped that the wetness he felt on his back was some bird who'd taken a shit on him. Even when he feels it three more times, he's still hoping that it's some really ill, really confused bird up there in the sky. Because there is just no way. There is no way that the first part of his date catches fire and the second part of his date--

"Look, Nick," Louis says, interrupting Nick's inner monologue of how much he hates his life. Louis is holding up his palm, and in it is a near-perfect drop of rain. Nick wonders if he's too old to cry. "It's raining!" Louis says cheerfully, leaping up and throwing his arms above his head once more, spinning around as the rain drops get more and more frequent. Nick is torn between strangling himself and watching as Louis dances in the steady rainfall, his eyes closed but his face lit up like it's Christmas. He looks beautiful, Nick thinks.

And then the skies open up and it feels as though they're foolishly standing under the Niagra Falls and even Louis, who loves rain and everything about it, stops dancing, slipping in the mud a bit but catching himself before he goes crashing down. Nick is standing, hastily stuffing anything remotely saveable into the basket and grabbing Louis' wrist, the two of them blindly slipping and sliding all the way back to the car.

The drive back to the flat is quick and Louis is mumbling song lyrics to himself as Nick decides that, quite clearly, no one up there ever heard of mercy. He is almost resigned, as he pulls into the parking lot and opens Louis' cardoor for him one last time, deciding to just leave the basket of picnic supplies in the trunk because if he is forced to dent his car again he _will_ be reduced to big, fat, incredibly manly tears.

Belatedly, Nick remembers that the rest of the lads are up in his flat, hopefully cleaning up but more than likely watching a movie in the living room. He follows Louis up the dark stairwell, mumbling to himself about mercy, mercy, mercy. Louis is nearly a floor ahead of him and Nick is already mentally preparing himself for a night of bad action movies sprinkled with the occasional Toy Story or He's Just Not That Into You.

When he finally makes it to his door, it's open and he can see the trail of rose petals, still on the ground. He flushes a bit around the edges and hopes that Louis didn't notice them. Oddly enough, he can't hear any sound coming from the living room, and he wonders if the rest of the lads are actually, genuinely cleaning his kitchen

Louis isn't in the kitchen when Nick gets there, but that's, horribly, not the only thing he notices. The kitchen is spotless. It's practically sparkling, from the glistening granite island to the fingerprintless stainless steel appliances. And on the island are two bags with smiley faces on them and a piece of paper.

 ** _Hi Nick,_** it reads.  
**_When it started raining over here, I figured you and Lou would be on your way back shortly after since all of your activities planned take place outside, so I got the rest of the lads out of here. I have no idea if you managed to eat anything, but here is crappy Chinese take-out from that place down the street that we always order. I told them it was your anniversary and they said the second bag has some traditional dessert inside._  
** Anyway, sorry that your date was rained out, but do try to keep the romance alive. I've got my five favorite movies on your coffee table in case things get tense. Don't forget the rose petals!  
You're good for Lou.  
Happy One Year.  
Love,  
Harry

Nick leans back on his heels, clutching the piece of paper in his hand as he studies the two plastic bags with smiley faces once more. A small smile pulls reluctantly at his lips and he sighs, running his hand through his sopping hair, crumbling up the note and tossing it into the bin it with a mental note to actually make an effort with Harry's next birthday gift.

He leaves the kitchen and continues his trek down the hall, but is stopped again by a small pile on the ground. Upon further inspection, he discovers it's Louis' shirt. The smile at his lips widens, just a little bit, and Nick drops the shirt once more, continuing past the blue pile of fabric that are Louis' jeans, and speeding up a bit at the sight of the white briefs that are just a metre from the door to his bedroom.

There Louis is, in Nick's bed, his cheeks flushed with self-consciousness, his fingers absent-mindedly playing with one of the rose petals at his side.

Words begin to fall from Nick's mouth at an alarmingly pre-pubescent speed. "I wanted everything to be perfect," he says, "But the hot air balloons caught on fire and it started raining during the picnic and the cake Zayn was making _fucking exploded_ and I just--you deserved a perfect day."

Louis laughs then and Nick's flushing now too. "I love romantic gestures," Louis says, looking down at the rose petals in the bed with soft eyes, "But all of that--it wouldn't have been _you and me_ if it'd all ended up working out. You're not romantic and we aren't some story-book couple, but that's why I love you."

Nick tries to keep the absolute elation off his face that hearing those words gave him. He really does. But he can tell from Louis' increasingly smug look that it isn't working.

"C'mere," Louis says, and that's all Nick needs, stripping off his shirt before crawling across the bed over Louis' small fame and kissing him properly.

"I love you too," Nick mumbles, and even though everything that could have possibly went wrong did, it's still, somehow, okay.

Better than okay, even.

**Author's Note:**

>  _ack i'm sorry if this was really bad. it was my first tomlinshaw as well as my first boyxboy fic and i was just so curious about them but gah._  
>  feedback would be most appreciated! xx
> 
> come talk to me or prompt me on tumblr [@rosalinesbenvolio](http://www.rosalinesbenvolio.tumblr.com)!!


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